


Fairy-Stories from Gristol and Other Isles: A Revised Collection

by Smaragdina



Category: Dishonored (Video Game), Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Fairy Tales, Gen, Misogyny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-20 05:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smaragdina/pseuds/Smaragdina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of the most popular children's tales from every corner of the Isles, newly collected and repackaged by the Abbey to teach children proper behavior and guard against the influence of the Outsider. (Tags updated as I go)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Introduction by High Overseer Campbell

Dear parent,

In generations past, even the most popular children’s tales have been tainted by witchcraft, unfit for publication and young and tender well-born ears. These “fairy-stories,” as they have often been called, have inspired superstition and left even the youngest and most innocent boys and girls prone to the corruption of the Outsider and the dangers of an Errant Mind.

No longer. The Abbey of the Everyman is proud to offer  this new collection of all the tales that you recognize from your youth and that are most beloved throughout the Isles – edited, rewritten, purged of all heresies or subliminal leanings, and deserving of a proud and prominent place on the bedside table of every respectable household

Children will always be fascinated by witches, wolves, noble maidens, and other fanciful figures. It is nigh impossible to discourage this behavior. Why not turn it into a learning experience? Consider reading a tale or two to your son or daughter every night. At the conclusion, discuss what lessons they can learn from it or which Stricture the story supports.  Your child shall grow with their innocence, sense of wonder, and uncorrupted soul intact.

Happy reading, and may the Outsider never haunt your steps.

\- Thaddeus Campbell, High Overseer


	2. The Song and the Swans [The Twa Sisters]

Far in the north of Gristol, there was lord who had two daughters. The eldest daughter was dark and the youngest daughter was fair. The eldest daughter’s eyes were black as jet, and the youngest daughter’s eyes were blue as the sky. But apart from this they appeared exactly alike. They were both very beautiful.

These daughters were both in love with the same young man. The young man loved the youngest daughter best. This made the eldest terribly jealous and terribly afraid: for she knew that if her sister married before her, she would be condemned to a life of spinsterhood and misery.

The daughters liked to walk by the river every morning, where the younger would feed the white swans that lived there. And one winter morning, when the mist was thick on the water and so the swans could not see to protect her, the eldest sister pushed the youngest sister in.

“Help me!” she cried, clinging to the river weeds as the cold water swirled around her. “Sister, please!”

But the eldest sister pretended not to hear. And she backed away in the mists, so she could not see. And as she walked home she smiled to herself, because now the young man would be all hers and things would be as they should be.

And so the youngest sister drowned.

The white swans found her body and recognized her as one of their own. And they crowded around her and shielded her with their great white wings, and bore her up upon the current. And they kept her safe from harm. And the great toothed black-eyed beasts from the depths did not touch her. The swans carried the poor girl’s body far downriver, and laid her upon the bank; and even in death she was so fair that she looked as if she were only sleeping.

Many men and woman came by and wondered at the beautiful golden-haired girl lying on the river bank. And after a long while a young musician wandered by. He was poor and wore a threadbare coat and had not eaten for three days, but he had been a scholar when he was young and he was very wise. And he looked at the girl and saw an opportunity. “She is so beautiful,” he said to himself, “what beautiful music she could make!”

And he gathered her up in his arms, and dried the water from her skin, and unwound the green weeds from her long white limbs, and he carried her back to his workshop. And he worked for seven long days and seven sleepless nights.

He took the marrow from her slender ribs and hollowed them out to make organ-reeds. He stretched and cured her lungs and sewed them into a set of bellows. He made the whole frame out of the bones of her arms and legs, and the joints were held together by the fine white bones of her fingers, and it was all bound together with her beautiful golden hair. And at the end of the seven days and seven nights and musician took up his organ, and wrapped his arms around her like a lover, and went back out into the world.

The organ made beautiful, beautiful music. Every night, the musician would play at a different tavern; every night, the hat that he passed around for pay would come back overflowing. Soon, he was staying at the finest taverns in the Isles and eating like a lord. He changed his tattered threadbare coat for fine velvet. And every night he played wonderful music, rich with the sweet haunting sounds of water and longing and river birds.

A year and a day after he’d first found the fair girl on the riverbank, the young musician found himself in the north of the Gristol at the house of a wealthy lord. All the nobles in the land were there. The lord’s young and dark-haired daughter had come in from the city along with her newly-wed husband; and it seemed to the young man that the husband was pale and unhappy, and that the daughter’s eyes were black and cruel.

But they were lords and he was only a commoner, and if he had said such things they would have thrown him into the river to drown. And so he stayed silent. And he began to play. No sooner had a handful of notes come forth than the dark-haired daughter rose screaming from her seat and ran out the manor doors and into the night.

For you see: instead of the sweet music that better men hear, the daughter heard only the grinding of bones and the scrabbling of nails on a wet river bank, and the voice of her sister yelling “please, please, please” as the water took her under. And the music that wasn’t music pounded and pained her head, even when she ran for hours and hours. She ran until she hit the river and she dove straight in, and the water rushed cold over her head – but still, the music did not stop.

The cruel and dark-haired sister could see swans on the surface of the river above her, and she reached up to them. “Help me,” she cried, “please help me!”

But the swans remembered. And they did nothing. And the great black-eyed beasts from the depths of the river wrapped their fins around her and took her down. And even today, if you go to that river, you can see the swans and hear the eldest sister’s pleas upon the mist; and sometimes you can hear an organ playing, the sweetest music of them all.


	3. Little Red and the Wolves [Little Red Riding Hood]

Once upon a time there lived three sisters, and they were as close as sisters could be. The eldest sister was the most beautiful girl in all the Isles. The youngest sister was the kindest girl in all the Isles. The middle sister was not so beautiful and not so kind, but she was the cleverest and wisest girl in all the Isles, and everybody loved her most of all. She was called Little Red after a red coat she always wore.

One day, Little Red and her three sisters were going to visit their grandmother, who lived far away at the end of a straight but dark path. A wolf appeared on the path before them. He was a very small and kind-looking sort of wolf, a lot like the hounds that Overseers have, and he didn’t look very threatening at all. He spoke with a strange accent. His eyes were deep and black.

“Little girl,” he said to the youngest sister, “My friends and I are playing in the woods. Won’t you come with us? We’ll have such fun together, and we’ll give you such pretty things.” And as a token of good faith, he held out a charm to the sister – it was made of beautiful white bone, and mounted on a silver pin. “You are so, so kind and young,” said the wolf, “everyone in the Isles has heard how sweet you are. Won’t you come and play with us?”

And Little Red begged her sister not to go; but she was foolish, and away she went.

The youngest sister went off with quiet wolf in the deep dark woods and met all his friends, and they played the whole night long. And the games were not good sort of games for a young girl to play. And the sister got lost in the woods, and the thorns cut into her skin, and her clothes got caught on brambles and were torn from her, and no one has ever heard from her again.

And so the two sisters continued down the path. And a little while later, a second wolf appeared before them. He was very large and handsome and fierce, and his mouth was full of sleek sharp teeth. He spoke with a strange accent. His eyes were deep and black.

“Young woman,” he said to the eldest sister, “My friends and I are dancing down by the sea. Won’t you come dance with us? We’ll drink strange liquors and eat strange foods, and we’ll give you such pretty things.” And as a token of good faith, he held out a charm to the sister – it was made of beautiful white bone, and mounted on a silver needle. “You are so, so lovely and fine,” said the wolf, “everyone in the Isles has heard how sweet you are. Won’t you come and dance with us?”

And Little Red reminded her older sister of what had happened to the youngest, and pleaded with her not to go; but she was foolish too, and away she went.

The eldest sister went off with the handsome wolf down by the vast silver sea and met all his friends, and they danced the whole night long. And the dances were the sort of dances that women dance and not young girls. And the sister grew hot and clumsy with drink and dancing, and the wolves took hold of her clothes and tore them from her, and she fell down in exhaustion, and no one has ever heard from her again.

And so Little Red continued on alone to visit her grandmother. The path was very long, and very dark. But it was very, very straight, and she knew that as long as she didn’t stray and put one foot in front of another she would be safe. After a little while a third wolf came to her. He was very wild, just like every other wolf. He spoke with a strange accent. His eyes were deep and black.

“Little Red,” he said, “you are the cleverest of all your sisters. My brothers’ tricks cannot fool you. I have a gift for you, for being so clever.” He held out a book – it was handsomely bound in black leather, and inside were drawings of all the bone charms that could ever be. “Come up to the city above the path,” said the wolf. “There is a university there where you can learn all the secrets of the stars. You are so, so wise. Everyone knows that you are the wisest girl in all the Isles, almost as wise as any boy. You could learn so much more. Won’t you come study with me?”

“No,” said Little Red (for whatever this wolf may say, he still looked like a wolf), “I need to visit my grandmother.”

“Come with me, then,” said the wolf. “I know a shortcut through the dark woods. I know another shortcut across the silver sea. I even know a shortcut by the city.”

“No,” said Little Red. “I must stay straight on the path.”

And because the path was long and she was frightened and alone, she started to sing a song that her grandmother had taught her to keep her company. And the wolf howled at her and left. Little Red kept singing and thinking she was safe.

But the wolf was even cleverer than Little Red, as all wolves are. He took one of his three shortcuts and went ahead, and he got there first. And when Little Red’s grandmother opened the door, he put his mouth to hers and sucked out all her breath. He climbed inside her empty skin so that he looked just like her grandmother except for his deep, black eyes.

When Little Red opened the door, the wolf in her grandmother’s skin was sitting up in bed, and he called to her in his musical strangely-accented voice. “It’s so cold, Little Red,” he said with her grandmother’s mouth. “Close the door and climb under the covers with me and tell me about your trip. Where are your two sisters?”

“They wandered off the path,” she said; and she did as asked, because the covers were very inviting and warm.

“But you are far too clever for that.” The wolf in the grandmother’s skin touched Little Red on the tip of the nose. “Would you like to know a secret, my clever and sweet little girl? Even on the path, you can still be eaten.”

And Little Red looked up in her grandmother’s face, and saw the darkness in her black black eyes, and she knew the wolf for what he was. But the wolf sucked the scream out of her when she opened her mouth, and sucked out her breath, and started to climb inside her skin – and that would have been the end of her had not a young man from her home village walked by just at that moment, singing the same song that she had sung on the path. And the music hurt the wolf’s head so terribly that he howled and leapt up from the bed and shucked her grandmother’s skin like the skin of a snake and tried to flee up the chimney; and he was burned black by the fire, and so he died.

And when Little Red looked inside his skin, she found that he was full of nothing but oil and fishbones and the bones of her two sisters. So she took all the bones and she broke them into pieces so that no one could make charms with them at all. And she took his skin for a new coat, and turned back around, and did not stray from the long dark path. And she sang the whole way home.


	4. The Siren [The Little Mermaid]

Off the north coast of Tyvia where the sea is choked with ice and strange lights shine in the sky, there lived five sirens. They had fish’s tails instead of legs, and their scales were silver and violet and black, and their voices were sweeter than those of any human women. The five of them would hide amidst the ice floes and use their ink-black hair as a cloak, and when ships sailed by they would sing, and the men on the ships would be so bewitched by their singing that they would drive their ships onto the ice and drown and the sirens would eat their flesh and suck the marrow from their bones.

Now, the most beautiful singer of these five was only three-hundred years old, which is very young for sirens.  There were green weeds coiled around her white arms, and red weeds growing in her black hair, and she had the sweetest and deadliest voice of all. She had spent time with the whale, and learned all his songs. And she was very clever and curious. She would go through the clothes of the men who drowned and find little things that are very ordinary for you and I, but very strange to her: pocket watches, and books, and pistols, and things they have no use for under the sea.

The young siren would take these objects down and hide them in a coral reef far below. Sometime she would spend all day looking at her treasures. Her favorite of all was a heart-shaped locket that she had wrenched from the neck of a handsome young sailor before his fellows had wrenched him back onto his ship. Inside the locket was a picture of a woman. The siren wanted to know what kind of a world this strange object came from. She wanted to know what it would feel to have it hanging around her neck instead of just cold water-weeds. Most of all, she wanted to know what kind of man the young sailor had been, and how he had loved the woman in the picture, and if one such a man could ever love a fish-tailed girl such as her.

For you see: there are no men in the depths of the sea.

“Men must be good for more than drowning or eating alive,” said the little siren to herself, down in the deep where the water is all black. “That’s enough for my sisters, but I am better than them. I want something more.”

She went and found the kraken, hiding in his garden of shipwreck and bone. “Kraken,” she asked, “what do human women do with human men, if they don’t drag them down to devour?”

And the kraken is the child of the Outsider, so he was kin to the siren, so he answered “nothing. Human women are no different than you and I. They wrap their arms around all things and choke the life from them. Why would you want to be like them?”

So she went and broke the surface and found the wind, playing among the white-caps of waves. “Wind,” she asked, “what is it like on shore?”

And the wind does the work of the Outsider, so he was kin to the siren, so he answered “I have been to the shore. It is cold and hard and very, very strange. It is nothing like the sea that you know. Stay where you belong.”

So she went and found the whale, drifting in water as blue and empty as the Void. “Whale,” she asked, “can a human man love a creature like me?”

And the whale is beloved of the Outsider, so he was kin to the siren, so he answered “no. Men only love nets and harpoons and blood. Their love is colder and crueler than the teeth of sharks. Stay away.”

But the little siren remembered the locket, and the love that the man must have borne for the woman, and she felt that the sea was now too small for her desire and her dreams. “They’re all wrong,” she said to herself. “I will prove them all wrong.”

So she clasped the locket around her neck and left her sisters and she swam far to the south, until the lights of a human city glittered on the horizon. They looked beautiful. The siren threw herself on the beach. She hauled herself up on the sand until she was far enough inland that the tide could not haul her back home. It was hard work, and after a while she flopped back in exhaustion. Her tail was beautiful, black and silver and shining violet, and in the sea it let her cut through the water like an arrow; but on land it was a weight that only dragged behind her.

The siren looked at it, and looked at the lights of the city in the distance; and she touched the locket at her throat and listened to her sisters out on the ice, crying for her to come home.

“It will be worth it,” she said to herself.

Those were the last words she ever spoke. For she took a jagged piece of shell and cut her own throat. With one slash, her beautiful voice that had killed so many men was ruined (for she had decided that she would kill men no longer, only love them). But because sirens are creatures of the Outsider, she did not die. The blood from her throat washed over her fins and turned them into a pair of legs.

But the siren did not know how to walk, and she was naked and cold without the sheltering bulk of the ocean all around her. Tailless and voiceless, she could not go back. All night long, alone, in a pool of shed scales and spilt blood, she wept and shivered on the beach. And in the morning a sailor found her – and (because this is the way of the magic she’d worked) when he saw the locket around her neck he threw his coat around her and took her to his home. For he was the sailor who’d been wrenched from the grasp, and it was his same locket that he’d lost at sea long ago.

Now, the little siren lived with the sailor, and he loved her well even though she could not speak. But the sailor was promised to another. The woman who’s picture hung around the siren’s neck still lived, and she and the sailor were to be married in the Month of Nets. This woman was everything that creatures of the sea are not. If the siren was curious, she was at peace. If the siren was clever, she was wise. If the siren was in love with the bustle and glitter of the city, she was in love with the wholesome peace of the country; if the siren spent her free hours at bathhouses and teahouses and meetinghouses and places where men talk of grand ideas, the woman spent her free hours at the Abbey, which filled her soul with the only grand ideas that have a place in a woman’s heart.

The Month of Nets was approaching, and the siren despaired. For she could not speak to the sailor and tell him how she loved him, nor could she tell him of the wonders that could await him if they lived together under the sea. And (because this is the way of the magic she’d worked) if her sailor married another woman before her, all the magic would be undone and her legs would wither away and the cut on her throat would reopen and she would die. And she was afraid. And she was afraid of the human world, too, for it was large and mad and there was much that she did not understand. Streets were dangerous, food was strange, and human singing was nothing like the singing of her sisters or of whales. She wished to go back to the sea. She wished to take her beloved with her.

And the sailor despaired, for he loved his betrothed; but he also loved the strange and voiceless woman that he’d found on the beach, with her black hair and her dark eyes and his locket resting against the jagged scar on her throat.

The sailor went to his mother, who was a old woman who’d watched all her children go to sea and seen only him return. “Mother,” he asked, “I love the girl from the sea, but she is strange. When she walks, she leaves wet footprints behind. Sometimes there is blood in the footprints. It leaves stains wherever she goes. What does this mean?”

And his mother was a wise and pious woman, and loved him well, and so she answered “it means that if you marry her, she’ll leave those bloody footprints all over your life. Stay away.”

So he went and found his captain, who had battled the kraken and harnessed the wind and speared the whale and brought him back to shore to burn. “Captain,” he asked, “I love the girl from the sea, but she is cold. She cannot speak and her kisses taste of salt. What does this mean?”

And his captain had heard the singing of sirens out on the ice, and loved him well, and so he answered, “it means that if you marry her, she’ll eat away at your life like salt eats at the hull of a ship. Stay away.”

So he went and found an Overseer, who wore a snarling mask to guard against evil. “Overseer,” he asked, “I love the girl from the sea, but she is an outsider. She does not understand even the most simple things, and she does not seem to like the sound of music. Late at night, I find her listening to recordings of whales. What does this mean?”

And the Overseer knew the dangers of an Errant Mind and knew that the man was divided between the two women, and loved him well, and so he answered “I will make your choice easy for you. Stay away.”

But the sailor was still torn between the human woman who would make his life ordinary and safe and good, and the wild woman who’s strangeness seemed as boundless as the ocean that he loved. And he felt that the shore was now too small for his desire and his dreams. And he felt himself come to a decision. “They are wrong,” he said to himself, “I will prove them all wrong.”

The night before her wedding, the siren woke to the sound of singing outsider her window. She opened the sash to find four familiar faces looking up at her from the harbor, pale in the light of the moon. “Sister,” begged the other sirens, “please, do not do this thing. Come home. Bring your beloved. We will catch him in the net of our hair and drag him under. We will crown him king of shipwrecks under the sea. We will pluck out his beautiful eyes and drink his rich blood and feast upon his flesh, and you will have his bones for ever and ever and ever, and all will be well again. Please, sister. We miss you so. Come back to where you belong.”

The little siren still could not speak, so she touched the locket around her throat and the scar underneath, and shook her head, and closed the sash. _No,_ she thought, _that is not where I belong. That is not my world any longer. I am between worlds. I want something more._

Her four sisters swam away. Now, the sailor’s former betrothed was usually a wise and prudent woman, but that night she was sick and foolish with jealousy and anger, and in her foolishness she was walking alone on the docks; and because of this single mistake the four sirens came upon her, and tempted her into the water with their song of men who are forever faithful, and tore her apart. But there was nothing left of her but her teeth and her hair, so no one knew. And the next morning dawned crisp and clear and the wedding bells were heard throughout the city.

The sailor’s mother and captain and the Overseer did not attend the wedding, and the siren’s sisters swam to far-away waters, and so when the sailor and siren married they were alone. They did not care. They kissed, and she smiled, and (because this is the way of the magic she’d worked), the scar on her throat vanished. “I love you because you are the sea,” the sailor told her. “I love the sea because it is endless and has no boundaries. Let us sail away from here, as far as we can, and prove everyone wrong.”

“You think the surface of the sea has no boundaries?” said the siren (and the sailor wondered at the beauty of her voice). “You should see its depths. There are places where no light can reach, and this means that anything you desire can be true. Let me take you down, and show you my home, and prove everyone wrong.”

“But I’m human,” he said. “I will drown.”

“I am not, and I will not.” The siren laughed, giddy. Her teeth were as white as the teeth of sharks. “I’ll show you how. _We will prove everyone wrong_.”

“Sing for me first,” begged the sailor: because this was the first he’d heard her speak, and her voice was so beautiful, whalesong and music and silk, the most enticing thing he’d ever heard. And she agreed to sing him one song before she worked the awful spell that gave him a tail and gills and magic like her. She took him out in the water, and he stood in the shallows and she in the depths. And her legs melted from her, and her black and silver and bright violet fins fanned about her once more, and the sailor was afraid; but then she opened her mouth and began to sing. And he forgot his fear, and his sense, and his name.

For you see: just as are no men in the depths of the sea save those that the sirens call to them with their glorious song, there are no men who can resist such a singing.

He dove for her. He flung himself out in the water to wrap her in his arms, to embrace her down in the sea and be with her forever. And he did not notice or care when the sea rushed into his lungs. The little siren gave a great cry of horror and tried to pull him back to the surface, for that was where she belonged – but the heart-shaped locket with the dead woman’s picture twisted around her throat, cooler and colder than water weeds. It wrapped around her. It choked the life from her.

And so they drifted down into the deep, dead, entwined, him with love on a face blue from drowning, her with horror on a face pale with love. And the sea swallowed them down and did not care. And no one knew. And no one wept.

For you see: magic such as the siren’s does not come without a price, and crossing the line between sand and shore as they had sought to do carries many.

For the kraken and the whale and the captain had been right: love is cruel and devouring and cold. It eats away like salt and strangles like revenge. And the good men of land must never, ever, ever dare to love the wicked creatures of the sea.

 

_Editor’s note: In the oldest Tyvian versions of the story, the titular siren is male (the sailor’s gender and that of his betrothed are unchanged). Older children might benefit from a discussion of what further lessons this version might teach us._


End file.
